#60: The Big Night (sent Dec 16)

I have to dream new dreams. Last Tuesday night, when I stood holding onto the man whose molecule saved my life, facing a room of people standing and cheering for him, it was the culmination of a dream I got possessed with only several weeks ago.


He found out from my newsletter about the December 9 Urban Stages show, then wrote me that he and his wife were coming.


I tried to get publicity for it. Since the Urban Stages Winter Rhythms is a fundraiser for their extensive youth theater program outreach, my main goal was to get people to come see the show. I had everything working against me.


First, the time slot. Tuesday night at 9. Can’t get worse than that. My audience doesn’t stay up that late for nobody.


Sue Matsuki, the producer of the event, lets all of us in this 2-week festival know that we have to sell the tickets. She shoos us with emails and reminds us of our numbers. And, two weeks out, my numbers were not good.


I needed to put out a press release. I needed someone! Anyone! To pick up the story and give us just a little mention. But the press needs lead time. And they need context and a story.


Press releases have a specific format. I was looking at tons of hard work, writing these things, finding who to send them to, etc. because I had several audiences. Theater, AIDS, queer history, Internet history, old age, where to start? How to start? With only two weeks to go?


I made an AI program write them all. I made it search up names to send them to. I had it craft emails specifically to all those people, and I blasted these out.


Immediately, City Councilman Erik Bottcher’s office reached out and said they’d have a framed certificate of honor for him from the City. Danny Whitman sent a beautiful acknowledgement from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. I tried several others but couldn’t reach the higher-ups. That’s okay.


Then, with that presentation as a hook, we – my AI and I – wrote up press releases and hit every name on my list and any other list I could find. Only two responses. BroadwayWorld.com reprinted our press release, which looked great, by the way. And I sent something to a NY Times person who said he referred it to another department, but it was a nice rejection.


And then I think I blasted this newsletter with the final plea to come see the show.


I’m also rehearsing with the singers a few times. I rehearse with Gavin on guitar. Bill Goffi doesn’t need a rehearsal. He’s like a wind-up toy. He can play anything at any time.


On the day of the show, we find out we’ve almost sold out. The house is going to be full.


So how was the show?


How would I know? I was in it. I can tell you that it seemed to go off without a hitch. And it was kind of cool that the musicians and singers (and I) and the audience were all experiencing it together for the first time since we didn’t have a group rehearsal and had never run the show. No one knew how it would turn out.


But I wrote in my diary that I was BUZZING all night after the show. I lay in bed vibrating. Shoulda charged Jim a quarter a minute.

It felt like a life-expanding event. Like my sense of self and purpose has expanded.


So what’s ahead?


I need to keep on dreaming. I keep having these peak emotional experiences but they weren’t accidents. I engineered them together by writing songs, then an outline, then a script, then hooking Jim into the script, then asking my friends to sing with me and then finding a great cause and putting it all out there, while hearing laughs and tears and applause.


What’s better than that?


I wrote to my brothers that the biggest moment of pride for me, among so many, is that this sheltered Baptist kid from Buna put on a show last Tuesday night that had New York City on its feet.


I think what I do going forward is stay the steady course. Tell my story. Do the laundry, make some meals, feed the cat, change his box, and then spend some time glowing like a Christmas ornament.


Living in the Bonus Round is now a thing with a script. So what happened on that stage was the birth of a new entity. Jim is already in there doing a rewrite.


And yes, it's all captured on tape.